Kindle Fire shipments plunge to less than 750,000 in Q1

updated 06:26 am EDT, Fri May 4, 2012

by MacNN Staff

Kindle Fire loses its spark, fading to a 4 percent market share

After setting the tablet scene alight in Q4 last year with 4.8 million tablet sales and taking the number two position in the market with a 16.8 percent market share, Amazon's Kindle Fire sales fizzled in Q1. For the months of January, February and March this year, Amazon saw its Kindle Fire slide to just a 4 percent market share on with less than 750,000 sales. By contrast, Apple drove home its advantage as the market leader by growing its Q4 market share of 54.7 percent to a dominant 68 percent on the back of 11.8 million iPad sales.

Apple reasserted its dominance in the market this quarter, driving huge shipment totals at a time when all but a few Android vendors saw their numbers drop precipitously after posting big gains during the holiday buying season,' said Tom Mainelli, research director, Mobile Connected Devices at IDC. 'Apple's move to position the iPad as an all-purpose tablet, instead of just a content consumption device, is resonating with consumers as well as educational and commercial buyers. And its decision to keep a lower-priced iPad 2 in the market after it launched the new iPad in March seems to be paying off as well,' he added.

Samsung reclaimed the number two position behind Apple, with Lenovo surprising with some aggressive pricing helping it to gain traction with Barnes & Noble's Nook tablets round out the top five. Looking ahead to the rest of the year, IDC expects Amazon to launch its rumored larger 10-inch tablet, with Google launching a co-branded Asus device to tackle the Kindle Fire at the lower end. It is expected to run a plain vanilla install of Android, possibly Android 5.0 (Jelly Bean). [viaAll Things D]

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Remember WileyCoyote chasing the roadrunner and falling off a cliff....... then comes the "falling bomb" sound as he gets close & closer to the ground below. And then, after a brief silence, you hear the exploding "poof" sound and see a rising mushroom cloud.......

heard much from the jackass analysts who claimed the Kindle Fire was going to eat heavily into iPad sales and put Apple out of business. After all, consumers only want tablets that cost no more than $199 and 7" displays are so much more useful than 9.7" displays when it comes to viewing media content. That's OK. I'm sure that the Kindle Fire is still the number one bestselling tablet on Amazon's website. A smiling Jeff Bezos will be unveiling the new and improved Kindle Fire this year and that will put an end to iPad sales for next Christmas.

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